Not surprising to many loyal Tribune readers, I live in a white-bread, middle-class, predominantly Mormon suburb of Salt Lake City.
One of my neighbors is another Mormon Stepford-clone like me. We are the same socio-economic creature. We go to church together, our families hang out together, we’re guided by the same values, and there is very little on which we disagree. Except when it comes to school vouchers – he hates them, I love them.
My neighbor has six children and all of them have attended public schools. I have six children and all of them have been home-schooled. All 12 of them are fairly indistinguishable except that some of them walk with a public school limp and some with a home school limp (and, of course, mine play basketball better).
This introduction is important and relevant because the November referendum on school vouchers will be decided by our particular brand of citizen-species – white, fairly well-to-do Mormons who vote. Like it or not, we are the swing vote.
Clearly, my neighbor has been extremely pleased with his local public school. He has the means to send his children to private schools, but he and his wife have consciously chosen to use public schools. He honestly believes he is the better citizen for having his children attend public school.
My neighbor hates school vouchers because he does not believe that taxpayers should subsidize families choosing to send their children to private schools. He often says, “Utah families already have school choice. They can send their kids to public, private or home schools. Why should I pay for the personal choices of families to send their children to private schools?”
To which I respond that my wife and I pay large amounts of state income taxes each year to subsidize the education of neighbor children even though we home-school our own.
“Yes, but that’s your choice,” he replies. Well, no, that’s not my choice alone. By law my taxes go to support public education, not home school. When you think about it, neighbor, my wife and I are actually the better education citizens – we don’t burden taxpayers with our children’s education and we willingly pay for the public education of children in other families.
“Fine. But I don’t think that we should subsidize private school education,” he retorts. But it’s OK to subsidize public school education? “That’s different!” How? “We have an obligation to give every child a good education. And, besides, paying for public education is not a subsidy.”
Well, my friend, it is a subsidy, no different than what a school voucher would provide. Your six children, combined, cost taxpayers $360,000 to attend public school on average for 12 years.
While you make very good money, your state tax liability is about $5,000 per year. Over 20 years, the life-span of your family’s public school years, that’s about $100,000. So your neighbors have subsidized your six children’s public education to the tune of $260,000.
By contrast, my family has saved taxpayers $360,000 and has benefited the public school system by another $100,000 in taxes. We agree that we want every child to receive a good education. That’s why I support school vouchers – if we are going to subsidize every child’s education anyway then why not let parents choose what is best for their own children?
What’s the difference as long as it makes Utah’s families happy, empowered and involved in the education of their children, especially struggling and impoverished ones? That’s the attitude of a good citizen.
—
* PAUL T. MERO is president of the Sutherland Institute, a conservative public policy think tank.

Follow-up letter to the editor

Mero’s Math (7/20/2007)

I think Paul Mero (“Vouchers just one more way of subsidizing education,” Tribune, July 16) omitted a few dollars that our tax system lets him keep because of his six children. So he really isn’t “saving” the state all that money.
As for vouchers in general, look at the performance in the District of Columbia. Its system makes more sense – vouchers for the poor to enable the children to go to a better school. However, the results after one year showed no improvement in test results for those children.

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Sutherland Institute is a conservative public policy think tank committed to shaping Utah law and policy based on a core set of governing principles. We strive to make Utah an example of good government for the rest of the nation and a great place to live, work, and raise a family.